Recent advancements in the area of automated speech recognition (ASR) technology have enabled the development of reliable, speech enabled, self-service applications allowing customers to complete various call center tasks using automated systems. One important aspect of a user interface for ASR applications is the “application personality.” The personality or persona of an ASR application may be generally defined as the general tone, attitude or mood conveyed by the application's “voice”, vocabulary used, as well as style of interaction, e.g., formal, conversational, directed, etc.
In the past, there have been no well defined or effective methods for developing ASR application personas. In modern practice, to develop an ASR application system persona, a speech technology vendor will typically interview customer delivery personnel within their client's company in order to understand the client's ASR application expectations. Based on data gathered, the vendor may then create demonstrations of several different types of ASR application personas and present the persona demonstrations to a group of stakeholders for selection. Generally, such a method of ASR application system persona development fails to address the needs or expectations of ASR application end-users and, therefore, generally fails to gain approval by its targeted users.